Leo Frank

Leo Max Frank (17 April 1884-17 August 1915) was a Jewish-American pencil factory superintendent in Atlanta, Georgia who was, in September 1913, found guilty of murdering the 13-year-old female employee Mary Phagan. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Governor John M. Slaton, who expressed doubts about his guilt, but he was later lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1982, new evidence proved his evidence, and he was posthumously pardoned in 1986.

Biography
Leo Max Frank was born in Cuero, Texas, United States on 17 April 1884. Frank was raised in New York and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University before moving to Atlanta, Georgia in 1908. He became involved with the city's Jewish community and became president of the Atlanta chapter of B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organization, in 1912. Frank also became the superintendent of a pencil factory, and the local community was concerned about child labor at Jewish-owned factories, although anti-Semitism was low in the area. In 1913, a 13-year-old female worker named Mary Phagan was found strangled, and Frank was found guilty of the murder. Governor John M. Slaton commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in 1915, as he expressed doubts about Frank's guilt. Slaton's decision was unpopular throughout Georgia, resulting in anti-Semitic public protest and vandalism. On 16 August 1915, a vigilante group belonging to the Ku Klux Klan removed Frank from his cell and, on the morning of 17 August 1915 in front of a large crowd, hung him from a tree until he died. New evidence emerged in 1982, and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles posthumously pardoned him in 1986.